J.G. Ballard - The Wind From Nowhere

"There's a big navy crawler on its way down from Hampstead," the guard told Maitland curtly. "They'll tow you back to the Green Park base."

Maitland nodded. He felt suddenly tired and looked around for somewhere to sit. The one bench was occupied by Musgrave's body, so he squatted down on the floor against a ventilator shaft, listening to the wind drumming in the street outside. Now and then the blades of the fan stopped and reversed as a pressure pulse drove down the shaft, then picked up and sped on again.

Apart from the Bethlehem there was only one other vehicle in the basement, a long double-tracked armored trailer being loaded by two guards from a freight lift. They brought up an endless succession of wooden crates, some loaded into the lift so rapidly that their lids were still waiting to be nailed down.

Out of curiosity, Maitland wandered over to the carrier when the guards had gone down in the lift. He assumed the crates would be full of expensive furniture and tableware, and looked under one of the loose lids.

Packed into the crates were six 3 1/2" trench mortars, their wide green barrels thick with protective grease.

The mortars were War Department issues, but there was no clearance seal on the sides of the crate listing their destination and authority. Turning the lid over, Maitland saw that it had been stamped in black dye: "Breathing apparatus. Hardoon Tower."

Most of the other cases were sealed, stamped variously with markings that identified them as oxyacetylene cylinders, trenching equipment, flares and pit props. Another open case, marked "Denims. Hardoon Tower." contained a neatly stowed collection of the black uniforms he had seen Marshall 's men wearing. Hardoon Tower, Maitland pondered. He repeated the name to himself, trying to identify it, then remembered a newspaper profile he had read years earlier about the eccentric multimillionaire who owned vast construction interests and had built an elaborate underground bunker city on his estate near London at the height of the cold war.

"O.K., Doctor?"

He swung round to see the big tough-faced guard who had arranged his transport step slowly across the floor, arms swinging loosely at his sides. Whether he was armed was hard to tell, but his battledress jacket could have hidden a weapon.

Maitland tapped the case full of trench mortars. "Just looking at this-breathing apparatus. Unusual design."

The guard scowled. "That's a useful piece of equipment, Doctor. Very versatile. Let's go, then." As Maitland walked back across the basement the guard pivoted on one heel and followed close to his shoulder.

"What's Marshall trying to do?" Maitland asked amiably. "Start a war?"

The guard watched Maitland thoughtfully. "Don't know what we might start. But let's not get too worried about it, Doctor. Sit down over there and take your pulse or something."

They wrapped Musgrave in a polythene shroud and lowered him into the turret of the Bethlehem. Maitland climbed in and wedged the body below the traverse, belting it down with the seat straps.

When he tried to get out he found that someone was sitting on the hatch, his feet obscuring the plexiglass window. For a moment he wondered whether to force it, then decided to take the hint. A few minutes later the navy crawler arrived and backed down the ramp. He felt it hook up to the Bethlehem, then move forward up into the street.

Powerful gusts of wind drove at the car, kicking it around. He gripped the traverse, swaying from side to side as the cabin plunged and bucked.

All around him, in the streets outside, he could hear the sounds of falling masonry.

Three times, on the way hack to the Green Park depot, the car left the roadway. Caught by tremendous crosswinds that swung it about behind the Centurion like a hapless tail, the Bethlehem plunged across the pavement, almost tipping over onto its side.

The streets were full of rubble and pieces of masonry, fragments of ornamented cornices from the older buildings, the remains of roof timbers strewn across the pavement, everywhere a heavy autumnlike fall of gray tiles.

They reached the depot at Green Park which housed Combined Rescue Operations, and entered the long tunnel of concrete sandbags that led them into the covered transport pool. A dozen other vehicles, Centurions and Bethlehems with a couple of huge M5 Titan personnel carriers, were unloading and refueling. Three of them had RN insignia; the navy, to whom Maitland was attached, shared the depot, but all the personnel in the pool wore the same drab uniforms. They looked tired and dispirited, and Maitland found himself sharing their despair. As he climbed out of the Bethlehem he leaned for a few minutes against the car, trying to free himself of the muscle and mind numbing weariness from the buffeting he had received all day.

He de-briefed himself quickly, then made his way toward the officers' quarters where he shared a small cubicle with a navy surgeon called Avery. Eager for a full role in the emergency, particularly with the RAF playing no part, the navy had put together a scratch operations unit. With Andrew Symington's help, Maifland had been assimilated with a minimum of formality. He had stayed with Andrew and his wife for a week, uselessly waiting for the wind to subside, and had been glad to be given a chance to do something positive.

Maitland closed the door and sat down wearily on his bed, grunting to Avery, who was stretched out full length, his black wind suit Unzipped.

"Hello, Donald. What's it like outside?"

Maitland shrugged. "A slight east wind blowing up." He took a cigarette from the silver case Avery passed to him. "I've been over at the Russell most of today. Not too pleasant. Looks like a foretaste of things to come. I hope everybody knows what they're doing."

Avery grunted. "Of course they don't. Reminds me of Mark Twain's crack about the weather-everyone talks about it, but no one does anything." He rolled over and switched on the portable radio standing on the floor below his bed. A fuzzy crackle sounded out eventually, almost drowned in the noise of people continually tramping up and down the corridor.

Maitland lay back, listening to phrases from the news bulletins. The BBC was still transmitting on the Home Service, half-hourly news summaries interspersed with light music and an apparently endless stream of War Office orders and recommendations. So far the government appeared to be tacitly assuming that the wind would soon spend itself and that most people possessed sufficient food and water to survive unaided in their own homes. The majority of the troops were engaged in laying communications tunnels, repairing electricity lines and reinforcing their own installations.

Avery switched the set off and sat up on one elbow for a moment, staring pensively at his wrist watch.

"What's the latest?" Maitland asked.

Avery smiled somberly. " London Bridge is falling down," he said quietly. "Wind speed's up to 180. Listening between the lines, it sounds as if things are getting pretty bad. Colossal flooding along the south coast-most of Brighton sounds as if its been washed away. General chaos building up everywhere. What I want to know is, when are they going to start doing something?"

"What can they do?"

Avery gestured impatiently. "For God's sake, you know what I mean, Donald. They're going about this whole thing the wrong way, just telling people to stay indoors and hide under the staircase. What do they think this is-a zeppelin raid? They're going to have the most fantastic casualties soon. Let alone a couple of typhoid and cholera epidemics."

Maitland nodded. He agreed with Avery but felt too tired to offer any comment.

There was a familiar tattoo on the door, and Andrew Symington put his head in. He was off duty at eight, and came over in the communications tunnel across St. James's Park to take his meals in the civilian mess at the depot before going over to the Park Lane Hotel. His wife's baby had still not arrived, at least a fortnight overdue. Dora was unconsciously holding the child to herself.